Politics

[tikiera]

I am getting rather sick of the argument that since birth control is a planned, regular basis prescription, it should not be covered by insurance.  This argument talks about how insurance is supposed to cover the unexpected.

It's stupid.

I use an inhaler.  I end up getting a replacement on a regular basis.  My insurance covers most of the cost of my inhaler. 

Most of the people arguing against birth control pills wouldn't argue against insurance covering my inhaler.

I hate people today.  I really do.

Comments

[anonymous_sibyl]

I had never even heard that ridiculous argument. I take seven planned, regular basis prescriptions every single day. Plus five others that are planned if used on a less than daily basis. Without insurance I couldn't afford any of them, not the ones that keep me breathing, not the ones that keep my heart beating regularly, and not the one that holds back MS.

I'll join you in hating people because that argument is just plain stupid.

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

The other argument I am hearing is that contraception is "cheap".

I want to bang my head on the wall for that one - sure it's cheap if you have insurance - your insurance negotiates a cheaper rate. No insurance? It can reach $50 a month.

Yeah. When you are earning $8 an hour, $50 isn't cheap. Not when it's a re-occurring monthly cost.

[jamesofengland.livejournal.com]

It's true that contraception, for most people, is more of a "payment plan" deal than a classic insurance matter. Whether your inhaler is or is not kind of depends on whether it was known at the point that the insurance contract was signed that you would need it in perpetuity.
But since FDR's War Labor Board decided that health insurance wasn't "wages" for the purpose of wage controls, health insurance in the US has always been a matter of box shifting whatever costs into pre-tax dollars could be justified. We were always entertained by my brother's French (where there is a slightly different form of subsidy) hospital's enthusiasm for selling us, as visitors, wine to be charged to the insurance.
I don't know who it is that you're referring to, but there are quite large numbers of people who want to shift to an HSA + catastrophic insurance (ie, insurance, rather than payment plans) system as the default. If your interlocutors fell into that camp, I don't believe that they'd be inconsistent in applying those principles to contraception. Obviously, a lot of people will be louder about it when it's a prescription they disapprove of, and some will only feel that way about prescriptions they disapprove of.
I've not seen this argument being made on the contraception issue specifically, despite reading quite a lot on contraceptive insurance over the last week, so it may be that I'm wrongly assuming that the broader principle is being applied in the way that I describe.

[tikiera.livejournal.com]

No, they weren't that bright. When confronted with people pointing out that high blood pressure pills, insulin, etc are all planned, regularly occurring medication, they fall back on the "conscience" argument.